July 10, 2010

The HTC Desire Android 2.2 update is a few months away yet. However, if you are willing to root your HTC Desire now, you can grab the unofficial update that has just been launched.

The good news with the HTC Desire Android 2.2 update is that it works very well according to those at XDA Developers with only a small amount of bugs. These bugs include no wallpapers, geolocalization not always working well and sometimes a reboot for unknown reasons. Although the last could be a problem, it seems like it isn't that often to cause worry and it would get you Android 2.2 on your Desire now.

If you plan on installing the update then make sure you follow the instructions found over here that give a warning on occasion to watch out for certain things such as not touching the phone during part of the update even though the phone reboots several times.

Let us know if you manage to install the update and if it works better than Android 2.1.

The OS from Google [GOOG] called Android is making quite an impact in the smartphone arena.

Numbers indicated that the Android platform grew 44 percent between February and May. The three months prior to that saw Android taking about 9 percent share of the US smartphone market. With the Android OS growing 44 percent the three months after that, the market share jumped up to 13 percent.

Thirteen percent isn't a huge number, but at the same time the four percent increase over a quarter shows the rate at which Android is moving. If the growth rate keeps up, which it can due to the sheer number of high end handsets being launched, then this time next year will show Android with a larger market share.

The main reason the iPhone isn't growing at the same rate is due to the restrictions in the US. Right now it's only available on AT&T [T] and is likely to stay on that network for another two years or so which gets rid of a potential 10 million or more users that Verizon [VZ] for example could bring. Also the iPhone is just a single handset (well, four in the series) whereas Android gets installed on many varieties of handsets from various manufacturers.

PCWorld has a more comprehensive look at how Android is growing and the iPhone staying the same. But one thing to remember is that Apple is by no means doing poor in the smartphone area.